California and Washington, D.C., look to each other for answers: Joe Mathews

I know that your politicians will say anything to get elected and your wonks are always grasping at straws. But I find it hard to believe how many people in your town are saying that I, the great state of California, am a model for you and the country you govern.

Still more peculiar is that the compliments headed my way are coming from people across your political spectrum. Liberals say my policies are an antidote to your gospels of cheap labor, immigration limits and deregulation. Conservatives praise Gov. Jerry Brown’s emphasis on frugality and debt reduction as a contrast to big-spending Democrats in your town. Democrats tout the virtues of California’s Democratic-dominated state government as a contrast to D.C.’s divided government. Republicans are pushing a plan to install California-style supermajorities in Congress to make it harder to raises taxes. And centrist good government types say California reforms like our new redistricting commission may reduce gridlock.

From what I can see, all this praise is so contradictory that none of it can be taken seriously. And so I don’t. If you live in California (or are California, as I am), you remember that just two years ago the state was ungovernable — and you know that not much has changed here in the last two years. Despite some improvements, our spending on services remains low, and our income and sales taxes remain high. Our inland counties are poor, and our coastal counties are still rich and expensive. We’re an open-minded place, but we haven’t thought up ways to solve big problems in prisons, health care, higher education and water.

In this context, I find myself puzzled not only by the idea of me as national model — but also by the fact that this praise is coming from Washington. Today, perhaps more than ever before, California must look to D.C. for answers and help.

Of course, the truth is that California has long been D.C.’s creature. You protected Yosemite and other scenic wonders that define us. You made possible the railroads and highways and airlines that people have traveled to get here. And you funded the defense industries that built 20th century California; even the Internet started out as a U.S. Department of Defense program.

Today, you still hold the purse strings, because you’re still the only place that can print money. Washington is making the decisions that will determine whether California’s two most high-profile projects — high-speed rail and the water tunnels under the Delta — become reality. And if the Edward Snowden affair proves anything, it’s that there’s not much that California companies Google and Facebook can do to stop the federal government from seizing Americans’ communications.

So while you think you have your problems in the capital, you, Washington, D.C., have surpassed California in many ways. More people are moving to you while my population is stagnant. Your residents are better educated and wealthier than mine. The median value of a D.C. home is now $60,000 more than the median value of a California home .

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Given your emergence as America’s wealthiest city, it’s surpassingly weird, to my ears, when your people say they can’t do big things. Because you’ve done so many big things in the past decade that I’m kind of envious: the bank bailout, the auto bailout, the stimulus, Obamacare and a couple wars. In California, we’re too hamstrung by our initiative politics and supermajorities to contemplate giant moves.

D.C., your biggest problem may be your lack of perspective. Stop whining about how divided and frustrated you are. Stop looking to California and elsewhere for models. And start focusing your considerable resources on becoming a better model for us.